Description

1915 Pittsburgh Rebels Federal League Panoramic Photograph.
Still wearing the lot tag from the historic 1999 Barry Halper
Auction, the presented panoramic photograph is one of the very few
surviving from the brief two-season lifespan of the Federal League,
a baseball experiment which has intrigued and bedeviled collectors
for decades. Before a packed grandstand of dark-suited spectators
pose the members of the Pittsburgh Rebels, a team aptly named as
the Federals were quite the thorn in the side of the established
National and American Leagues who struggled to defend ownership of
their top talent against the financial incentives of the plucky
start-up. In reality, the team was named after its player-manager,
a thirty-one year old Louisiana native named Ennis "Rebel" Oakes,
among those team members captured by the photographer's lens.
Several vertical creases are evenly spaced across the thirty-three
inch width of the photo, the result of the image having been rolled
then flattened. A few thin tears wander in from each edge, but
these likewise cause little distraction. The image still presents
beautifully, as our catalog imagery should attest, and is
professionally framed to final dimensions of 15x39".